Hey guys. It’s currently 2am and I’m actually going to the airport in 3 hours, but this thing I read has been on my mind and I just wanted to reshare it:
“Please please, whatever you do, take RISKS. Living comfortable doesn’t get you anywhere. Forget EGO. It is one of the biggest roadblocks towards developing a better you. Thinking that you’re better than others and refusing to try something that you won’t be best at makes you feel good in the short run and will only cause you to fail in the long run. Because you miss out on the OPPORTUNITIES. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take and it sounds cliche, but it’s so true I swear it to you. Don’t ever think that you can’t change anymore, or that there’s nothing to learn. Everyone is ignorant in one thing or another, and changing and adapting and taking RISKS is GOOD.”
Hey guys! I’m back again in the same day (wowww we’ll see how long this commitment lasts…)
I watched this video yesterday called “Waking up at 5AM is changing my life” (I’ll attach it below).
I thought that the video was extremely inspirational/motivational and kind of eye-opening. The man in the video talks about how he read about this healthy lifestyle that made you more productive if you woke up at 4:30AM each day and decided to try it out (except he decided 5AM is more reasonable because 4:30AM was just crazy early). He first mentions that before he tried the routine, he was always on his phone, constantly tired throughout the day, and never felt like he had any time to get anything he wanted to do done. This caught my attention because this is exactly how I feel right now; it’s ironic because it’s post highschool senior year summer where I literally have negative work and all the free time there is in the world. Even though I’ve been getting lots of sleep (I sleep from 2am to 11am which is an impressive 9 hours) I always feel tired throughout the day (resulting in my 3 naps a day), I’m always scrolling through my phone, and I never feel like I’m accomplishing my goals (coding my website, editing my vlogs, reviewing Calculus & Physics, etc;). The problems the man in the video has is literally me. Moving on, he talks about how he thinks being on our phones in general (not even for extended periods of times) is extremely detrimental for us. He says that he spends hours just glued to it and completely loses track of time. He also talks about how it makes him forget things and not be able to clearly think–which is so funny because that’s how I’ve been feeling recently, and I thought I was the only one. Recently I’ve been going through this feeling where I know there are things to think or plan about ahead of time (schedules for Columbia, checklist, activities/events, etc;) but when I try to think about what to do I hit this mental barrier. It’s not even like I don’t feel like thinking about it, I literally cannot fathom anything from my mind and I just can’t focus on what needs to get done so I go back to scrolling through my feed on my phone or chatting with friends on social media. So to try out this “productive lifestyle” the man talked about his new developed routine. It went like this:
Turn off phone an hour before going to sleep
Change phone in another room
Go to sleep at 10pm (latest) every night
Wake up at 5am
Don’t go on phone/technology 3 hours after waking up (so until 8am)
He says that he had only been following that schedule for a week, and he already feels a dramatic positive difference in his life. He also talks about how he now feels like he has so much time on his hands to do anything he wants, never gets tired throughout the day, and how his mood improved as well. He would wake up early and go on a jog (improving physical health), enjoy the peaceful nature for an hour or two or watch the sun rise (relaxing), and get some good reading done (increasing knowledge) before eating breakfast. There are more specifics to how it improved his life (in the video), but it honestly sounded amazing and for someone who seems to be going through the exact same rough patches he dealt with throughout the day, I really wanted to try it out.
Which leads us to now–it’s 2am (haha you tried Jess), buuuut… I can explain. Unfortunately, after getting lunch with some friends I got home at 3pm feeling exhausted (even though I literally didn’t do anything the whole day except for a short conference call) so I took a “nap” but ended up sleeping all the way till 7pm. Then, I went out and modeled for a photoshoot, but we got dinner and some caffeinated drinks after (that’s my fault, I know). The 4 hour nap combined with the caffeine at 9pm together rendered my preparations to sleep at 10pm useless. I guess I wouldn’t call it a complete failure though. I did try to follow the routine to a degree so I went and put my phone in my mom’s room at 9:30pm and got ready for bed at 10:30pm. Then I read a bit from this book called “Essays from the Yale College Writing Center” I got when I visited Yale and it was actually a really interesting read (I had almost forgotten what good writing sounded like because I’ve done negative reading over summer). I put down the book to sleep at 11:00pm (okay I know it’s not 10pm exactly, but sleeping this early is hard considering I’ve been sleeping around 2-3am all of summer). But yeah… the rest of the story is that I couldn’t sleep (not a surprise). I tried to? I lay in bed till 2:00am but then I thought it would be more productive if I went and did some online shopping for Columbia. I decided I was going to try to follow it a bit so I wasn’t going to get my phone or go on my mac (which is connected to my social media/text), so I opened my Predator Windows Computer (used for my research) instead. I finished choosing some of my bedding/room stuff and also finished labeling “buy” or “bring” in my college checklist for my dorm. I also decided to finally begin opening my endless stream of Columbia emails until I happened upon the technology flyer about Columbia providing you with a free personal blog and also if you know HTML you can code your own blog. Anyways, that landed us here. I’m also on the process of coding my own blog, and I think Columbia offers us a hosting site (?) but I’m still a long way from being done (aka perfecting) my personal website so that won’t be up for awhile.
Anyways, since I can’t sleep, my plan for tonight is to pull an all-nighter (I know… not the smartest idea but…). Then, I’ll be tired enough to sleep at 10pm tomorrow night and follow the routine (same way I got rid of jet lag). I’ll still follow the rule about not going on my phone/technology for 3 hours after I “wake up” at 5am. But even now, with my phone in another room and not accessing any social media, I’ve been extremely productive and finished a lot of things that I have not been able to do in the past week/month.
Alright I’m signing off, but feel free to watch the video (if I haven’t sent it to you yet) because it’s actually so inspiring / eye-opening.
Hey guys! This is my first post; I’m just dipping my foot into this Columbia blog business and trying it out. I do have my own blog where I document the things I do but I thought it would be nice for a change to blog on this page instead and make use of this unique feature that Columbia provides for us. Before I begin, quick introduction: Hello! My name is Jessica and I’m going to be a freshman at Columbia University. It’s pretty crazy that school is starting soon–in fact the countdown until I leave for college is 5 days! I plan on majoring in Computer Science in SEAS and likely minoring in Economics or Political Science. I am currently doing research on AI and Virtual Reality technology and how it can be developed to improve communication and other functions in our technology-driven world so I’ll most likely be documenting most of my research and findings on this blog for now! Apart from research, I also love to teach and choreograph dances, run for my track and field team, and program applications.
